Poems by Kimberly Burnham

As a 28 year-old photojournalist, Kimberly Burnham appreciated beauty. Then an ophthalmologist diagnosed a genetic condition, “consider life if you become blind.” From devastating words, she forged a healing path and became a brain and visual health expert. Winner of SageUSA’s story contest with 2013 Cross-USA bicycle trip poetry, her publication credits include Healing Through Words; Music—Carrier of Intention in 49 Jewish Prayers; and Year of the Poet.

Vision Exercises

Wake from the dream where you are falling immobilized open your eyes to the green world where trees grow and shade the people who plant them believing in a better world for the children

Wake from the dream open your mind to neighbors really see who they are the ways you are the same strengths you can learn

Wake from the dream in the night when insights come and beauty is just beneath the dark surface sleep relaxed recovering open your heart in the morning visualize the day transformations one person can make

Wake from the dream to places beyond right and wrong shades of gray where you can give everyone benefit of the doubt see what is beneath the surface

Wake to the dream of home where you are possible

—

Thirty Days

Have you read each one written a poem lovingly crafted in haste late at night as the muse strikes in the light growing as the sun rises

Each one meeting the challenge floating out into the world words and letters combined just so have you read each one written

and felt the strength and strain as the words are weighed and filters a particular perspective coming with the light of each new day

Of Mormon hymns so deeply engrained bringing tears of joy and emotions so hard to explain

Of Jewish songs on the road a journey carried on the wheels of singers bringing life to ancient feelings and love

Of Temple bells calling meditators to ponder the mysteries of the Green Tara spinning mantras into transformation

Each turn of the mandala bring new insights deeper inside ways to look outward at the world all around moving changing adapting

—

The News

I didn’t listen to the news today to busy moving buying shiny metal fixtures for a little boy’s dresser taking his older brother to soccer practice unpacking dishes moved just this week to the new house picking out purple paint for a little girl’s drawers putting away her older sister’s temporary cot making way for the large white bunk beds coming tomorrow watering the green plants sunlit in the bathroom window I don’t know what else is going on in the world but here in Spokane we are moving growing enjoying the sun set on a busy day

—

How Are You

As every cell listens great fine tired grumpy

What am I saying as every cell listens placebo nosebo the choice is mine

What energy is behind the words as I set the tone for the rest of my day the rest of my life

I feel great ready to take on the world full of challenges and opportunities

—

Naturally

Light sunlight traveling millions of miles finally reaching gratitude warming skin and hearts turning plants green with growth showing the way bringing color to life thank you

The name expressing the essence conjuring warmth in the darkness fire in the soul the long relationship sunlight growth life I hold precious the natural world created creating

—

Funhouse Mirrors

Have you ever been in fun home with funny mirrors you look tall, slender, right next to mirrors making you short and fat, or wavy, drawing you out of focus away from the short attention span?

Even in an undistorted bathroom, that reflected image of your face, landing on your eyeballs, is filtered, interpreted, assigned a meaning that may or may not have as little to do with reality as a funhouse reflection.

And yet our mirror neurons look for the familiar, ways to identify with others, feel the truth in other’s words, the flick of a wrist, the twist of a smile.

Can you own yourself in your story, or feel a woman living her whole life a few feet from her body?

Do you resonate with the story you are telling? As every cell listens. Is your story friendly, inviting you home?

Do you know what motivates you to share a hug or push yourself away?

—

Friendship

Love and friendship just words in the mouth of some but true friends do what they say go way beyond fulfill needs expecting only kindness in return

That is the beauty there can be no return can’t return friendship you can waste it or let it go by the wayside unattended like crowded flowers but it can’t be returned like a pair of pants that no longer fit

Pay it forward into another’s life build friendship dig deeper amidst chaos and stress see the gleam of friendship for all around it is precious

Dedicated to my friend Dana Levitt

Dear Stranger

I bicycled past your Montana home today I wondered about your life what it is that brought you here or whether you have always been here where I have newly come soon gone on to the next town on this three thousand mile journey

A worn wood and barbed wire fence dividing me from you the grass between us shades of green, blue and yellow where a long gravel drive way winds from where I pause to wonder.

Your ranch style one story home so different from my yellow three story home a world away in Connecticut though both have a similar pitch to the roof to let the snow slide off dark slate contrasting the cream colored outer walls

I wonder in the heat of the summer as I ride by what you thought about as you sat by the fire with snow covering the clumps of grass two chimneys peaking up into the blue sky filled today with puffy white clouds thin like a gauze veil

If you and I went out into the evergreen and blue tinged forest to cut some wood would we have anything in common would we argue about politics farming and life

Or for a moment in time as I paused my peddling occupying the same space, breathing in the same Montana air feeling the breeze would we wonder at the beauty around us and find the common ground where we are both at home

How do you predict what do you want your life to look like in five years really she means expect when she asks what do I expect the future to look like

I look around seeing people who achieve life goals graduation education family retirement a plan laid out followed more or less

Considering my life in five year incrementsat 15 I would never have predicted speaking Japanese studying Buddhism I knew where my life was headed

At 20 working in Canada as a photographer publishing in books and magazine not even a dream I was going to work for Jacque Cousteau on the Calypso

At 25 I thought I already had my happily ever after years later I still wonder is this the one

At 30 Director of Vision services in a large multidisciplinary clinic a reality beyond belief far far beyond add in a PhD in Integrative Medicine and it is really fantastical

At 35 falling in love again moving to Colorado inconceivable I was going to work in Connecticut forever

At 40 imagining working in Israel was a possibility but not likely for me like SCUBA diving in the Red Sea at Sinai number 57 on my lifetime to do list accomplished just days before work in Tel Aviv on September 11th unimaginable

At 45 leaving my brilliant teacher I thought I would follow her forever but life changes everything

At 50 bicycling 3000 miles across the United States impossible yet here I am with bragging rights

At 55 life in Spokane, WA crazy I wouldn’t have believed you if you predicted I would be step mom to two sets of twins and a soccer mom

Can’t imagine what life will bring to 60 in a few years

—The Birth of Compassion

Words “what you too?” unmasking likeness we two hand in hand facing with courage I thought I was the only one here in the darkness

Similarity and companionship at its finest you and I rally each other when discouraged words “what you too?” unmasking likeness

Mirroring each one seen priceless sharing the baggage I thought I was the only one here in the darkness

Finding common ground in oneness never alone having to manage words “what you too?” unmasking likeness

Together facing each crisis no us or them rather a community package I thought I was the only one here in the darkness

Sitting quietly as the sun rises illuminating the path ahead forging collectively the passage Words “what you too?” unmasking likeness I thought I was the only one here in the darkness

—

If The Library Was Email

Love the library it’s not my email makes me smile at the thought of walking in alone or with small children

Lately I have taken to highlighting all emails in my inbox hovering over delete then unchecking the one I actually want to keep

Why can’t my email be more like the library where once a week if often enough to learn and be entertained

If library were equal to email whole sections of books would be plastered in notes words like “the best book ever” “your friend Ann recommends this book” “read page 145 to lose weight now” “check this out now”

And lots of effort into cover, binding, and edge each line written in different colors and fonts the librarian would know my name and my list of key words I would feel bad that I can’t read every book

She would look over my shoulder spy on my choices beside each book would be a box other books I might like marked with colorful sticky notes “moving? find the best way here” the library would know everything about me

I love the library because free and subtle roping in my favorite authors like James Rollins or books like Einstein’s Dream

—

Hiding

She doesn’t remember the last time she moved a six year old now the earth has circled the sun five times since then

Why are you hiding the tea cups she questions as I wrap each one carefully placing them in the moving box

And I wonder what am I hiding with this move the remembered pain of past moves too many to count so much stuff I commit to having less to hide in future boxes

It is a lot of work to move she says picking each colorful magnet off the apartment fridge can I have this one in my room in the new house and just as easily she says do you think we will ever move again

Thinking of the thirty or so houses in five countries on four continents I have lived in since I was her age I say maybe not

I know right who does that how does a fiscal republican raise democrats

I tried to instill values and in so many ways she is her father’s daughter in the garden at the swimming pool with a book in her hand but how does a heterosexual couple raise an out lesbian

What happened to following in your father’s foot steps creating miniature versions of yourself how does a good LDS family raise a Jew by choice

It is a crazy world where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people even hard to tell the two apart sometimes love’s the only way to understand change and choice and family

—

Sonar

Sit quietly among the boxes piled high regret not the hours on the bike always leading to this moment powering your leg and mind for the road ahead

Regret not the music made you cry at the top of the hill by the side of the road among the wheat fields

Not the lover you left sitting in the dark house or the one at Dartmouth the ones that didn’t see the beauty of your eyes the first kisses regret none of these

Not the nights you spun in the universe trying to figure out what god is beating like a bat using sonar trying to get your bearings feeling the pain of it all in the pit of your stomach

You were meant to feel and whirl dance across the hardwood floors climb into the car leaves falling create memories

You’ve cycled these roads a hundred times and still wake up here in this beautiful house love and flowers all around you

Regret nothing, not one moment moving, searching, wasting time as gray enchanted books unfinished, deadlines looming use the color

You’ve packed the box of warm sweaters as if each mistake could be spun in your hand and somehow churned lead into gold it is already so golden so yours

Enjoy the memories wash away the gritty details a hot bath ipad in hand sinking your physical being deep breathe in life take that moment to adapt like children running wild in the fence yard safe and free planting red onions beyond the fence coloring outside of the boundaries looking forward to summer heat again this year

—

As Every Cell Listens

Listen to the world memes in a sound a best friend’s advice teacher’s critique constructive or not car radio blaring favorite songs as memories flood in

Listen to the cycle of life birds heralding spring wind wandering though fall leaves the crack of a bat in summer heat winter bare maple branches fingering frosted windows

Listen as every cell listens your own voice responding a question how are you placebo nosebo optimist and pessimist crusading for your health

What is the sound you are making who is making the sounds you are responding to listen sounds they ripple

I take a deep breath and come back to here where I stand on hard grey and white marble enchanted in the adventure before moving on to the next feast

—

Stamps

Yes, still collecting stamps small flat valuable pieces of paper an American penny 1000 lira a British half penny five rubbles 40 Belgian francs all currencies of communication

Glued to the past to my grandfather’ collection now mine with his son’s, my father still saves me stamps in an envelope flattened under a phone book in a kitchen drawer

Men in old uniforms peer out from the square papers with crinkly edges attached to my collector’s book next to tropical birds beaks open as if squawking tell me a story of jungle life in Colombia where I roamed as a child

Names have changed governments have fallen revolutionaries commemorated invaders have left me with stamps from the Belgian Congo Yugoslavia more countries than exist anymore

Kings and queens their names famous from birth inscribed in bold fonts below their images strung through chronology with ordinary men and women setting out or happening to do something great climbing mountains visiting the moon

Bringing peace to war torn lands adventures inscribed in familiar and unfamiliar languages names a geography class held within a tiny slip of paper

We all had stamps the idea of money paid stamped in approval of the message carried inside the envelope

Convenient business transactions now overwhelming rich colorful textures I still collect stamps and yes I really want you to count out stamps so beauty is carried on the outside or slap on a forever stamp

Send me a message

—

Coming Back

to life long lived seasonal cycles spring chases winter darkness of a break up with renewal of love and hoping this will last be the last upheaval longing to snuggle in

To second springs myself coming back to joy letting go the chameleon flashing a few true colors propelling who I am into a fresh tribe

Discovering how I fit in the crook of her arm at the FAVs table Kosher dinners musical bands

A new home with familiar pear trees transplanted like me along with goji berries Jerusalem artichokes and bright yellow daffodils

All of us thriving in a new state

—

Lists

Every day I make lists planning my journey what I should do don’t should on yourself a friend says and I wonder

Am I trying to control the future make a record of the past the trick is how to remember hold sacred the day behind while loosening the grip controlling the future

Like holding a snake caught in a gnarled orchard loose enough to live tight enough so it doesn’t all get away from me

My mind pauses overtoday‘s details this particular week a momentous year to come I have time now time and water flowing faster through the narrow places

What will I leave behind where will I cross the moment first in my mind’s eye with or without the lists.

—

Global Nomad

Celebrating Passover under a blood red moon as tides pull on my soul at the start my second year here loving children I didn’t birth

Following many paths to the top in the land of the rising sun memories float like a blue moon hanging low over Mount Fuji

I am good at letting go on five continents not proud but good at saying goodbye to the past to loss’s pain

A global nomad home anywhere I can see the sun rise walk by the light of a full moon

Mine is a wandering path wisdom gained on the journey deep in my cells as I run up the beach like a turtle under a full moon planting seeds I will not grow long gone at the harvest moon

Setting early in the morning laying at the bottom of a circle of stones my back on the warm moist earth of craggy Peruvian mountains letting go feeling the pull of nature gathering and nurturing new seeds

Planting my feet on old lands where battles have been fought with blood and sweat long before I arrived’ in Europe a sense of history coming alive

Under the pull of the moon nourished by cycling tides of twinned losses and new beginnings

—

Connecticut Yankee

I want to say for a time I loved being a Connecticut Yankee attending fund raisers in Mark Twain’s house eating sweet potato fries on Daniel Webster’s Blue Back square

Living in the space amid metropolises cheers torn between Yankees and Red Sox’s enjoying U Conn women’s basketball an unpresidented run on greatness

Peddling strong in green rolling hills blowing off steam on an indoor bike for his re-election training to leave

Wild Connecticut her eyes kale eating woodchucks turkeys walking the sidewalks blue hearts open minds East where the sun rises

—

The First Mile

Adrenalin pumping the crowd cheers first miles are not the hardest

A life balanced in time each and every mile changes everything

Time all alone on the road brown splotched cows and green corn as far as you can see

3000 future miles looming mountainous ribbons of road seeming to go on forever

Losing for a moment self finding love and courage gratitude most of all

When the first excitement dissipates creative processes begin in earnest